HSMC #2: Happiest
"Ah, ah, ah, ah," Sharpay Evans vocalized into the mirror. "Ah, ah, ah, ah," she repeated, this time a key higher. And higher and higher.
"'Princess' again?" her brother Ryan interrupted, referring to the type of vocal exercise she was performing.
"Yes," she replied, fluffing her hair and preparing to take it another key higher.
"You only do 'Princess' when you're really nervous," Ryan reminded her.
"No, I don't," she lied easily. "Ah, ah, ah --" her voice cracked on the highest note. "I'm never going to hit that note!" she sighed, exasperated and frustrated and just plain annoyed.
"Sure, you will. With practice, you'll get there."
Sharpay rolled her eyes. Sure, sometimes it was comforting to hear her brother's words of wisdom, but most of the time it was simply exasperating, especially when it was unwanted, which was almost always.
"Go now," she snapped. "I need to nail this audition."
Ryan edged toward the bedroom door, about to leave. He paused for a moment, looking at his sister in the mirror's reflection. "Break a leg, sis."
"Ryan!" she growled, giving him an aggressive nudge out the door, slamming it in his face.
She turned back to her mirror, pressing the play button on her stereo. Her Les Miserables karaoke CD, worn with age and use, skipped for a moment on the first track; she bypassed a few tracks until she found the one she wanted, the one she'd practiced with about a thousand times since she first bought the CD at the age of seven.
"And now I'm all alone again, nowhere to turn, no one to go to... without a home, without a friend, without a face to say hello to... and now the night is near, and I can make believe he's here," she sang fluidly to her mirror's reflection, putting an extra bit of air into the last, lowest note.
"You're not honestly going to audition with On My Own, are you? It's incredibly overdone," Ryan's voice, rang out, effectively shattering the moment, and Sharpay's patience.
"What part of 'go away' did you not understand?" She slammed the door in his face once more. A moment later, the door squeaked open slightly. "And of course I'm not auditioning with that. It's just a warm-up. How much of an amateur do you think I am?" And then it shut again.
------
Taking one large breath, Sharpay tried to relax.
However, relaxation was evading her today.
Today was her first true audition, for a college production. She was going to try to obtain the role of Lucy Harris, one of the lead female roles in the University of Albuquerque's production of the Jekyll & Hyde musical. This was the first time that the University's theater department was opening up auditions to neighboring high schools and colleges -- for recruitment purposes, the local newspaper had informed her.
Whatever reason the University was doing this... well, Sharpay could care less why the opportunity had presented itself, just that it was there. This could mean big, wonderful, life-changing things for Sharpay if she got a part -- any part.
Everything she'd ever done led up to this moment. All her work in community theater and the stage at East High -- it meant nothing if she couldn't make it into this show. All the preparation of the past month -- it was in vain if they laughed her out of the room.
Sharpay shook her head; she couldn't let negative thinking get to her. Mind over matter, she thought to herself, inhaling another large breath.
She inhaled the scent of her favorite lotion. It smelled like strawberries. Sharpay sighed contentedly, calming instantly. The scent always brought her mind back to summers when she was a little girl. Summers when she had the world at her fingertips.
------
Before her family started to regularly attend Lava Springs, she and Ryan spent many a summer out at the beach in front of Aunt Vivienne's house. She could recall clearly -- Ryan would always sit on the right side of the backseat, she on the left. When they pulled up to the house, Ryan would fling his door open first; she would follow immediately and catch up to him quickly as they raced up the steps -- one, two, three, four -- to see who was fast enough to reach the doorbell first. They kept track each year: when the twins were thirteen years old, the score was four for Ryan, and three for Sharpay. She had beat him that year, relishing in her victory: "In your face, Ry!"
That was the last year they spent the summer at Aunt Viv's.
It was a good summer, she reminisced, that thirteenth year. She had her first kiss there, with the boy across the bay. Peter Adams, she remembered, smiling a silly grin to herself in the mirror. They met when they were nine, when his family moved in. She remembered his strawberry blond hair, green eyes, and excessive smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. He had the goofiest grin she'd ever seen, with crooked teeth, until his braces fixed them the year they turned eleven.
She vaguely wondered what happened to him.
Turning her attention back to the project at hand, she shoved the memories out of her mind. Mind over matter, she reminded herself. The audition was only three days away. She needed to nail the big finish to her audition piece. She brought out her sheet music and popped in her Miss Saigon karaoke CD.
As she practiced, her eyes zipping along the sheet music as she kept time with the CD, her thoughts didn't seem to want to let her off the hook. She kept getting distracted, remembering the feel of the sand in her toes when she, Ryan, and Peter tried to dig themselves to China, the wind in her hair when Peter's brother Charlie drove them to the liquor store across town... and strawberries, always strawberries... they were Aunt Viv's favorite fruit. She always had a supply, ready to be mashed up into cereal or a shortcake. The scent permeated the house, settling on every conceivable object, in every hard-to-reach crevice, even.
Yes, those had been good days.
Focus, Sharpay reprimanded herself, singing louder.
------
That night was a difficult one, at first.
Sharpay tossed and turned, her thoughts pelting her with What if?s. One thought led to another; she couldn't stop them.
What if I completely suck at my audition? What if I don't get into Julliard? What if I don't get in anywhere? What will I do if I can't be a professional performer? Would I teach? No, of course not. I don't have that kind of patience. And no way am I working in the food industry... disgusting. Oh, crap, I have a trigonometry test tomorrow and I didn't study. Not that I'm going to need trig in life anyway. When am I ever going to use FOIL? Except for cooking. Oh, who am I kidding? I'll never have to cook for myself. I'll be rich and famous and the help will do that for me. Unless I don't get rich and famous... that's stupid, of course I will. This one little audition doesn't change a thing, right? ...I'm going to make it. I'm sure of it. I've gotten the lead role in every play since kindergarten! I'm Sharpay freakin' Evans!
She began to relax then, reassuring herself. She settled on one side of her body, her mind quieting down a bit.
The smell of her favorite lotion wafted through her bedroom. Without recognizing any conscious change, her thoughts veered back to her favorite summers.
------
Ryan always claimed the top bunk; secretly, that was fine with Sharpay (whose greatest fears included heights and Grandmother Kathleen's dentures). She only put up a fight so she wouldn't look like a scaredy cat, as her cousin Mitchell was intent on proving. They were there sometimes, too: her cousins Mitchell, two years older, and Logan, a year younger. She always wished for girl cousins, and hoped year after year for another girl to move into one of the surrounding beach houses, just to have a break from all the boisterousness once in a while, but it never happened.
It was fine, though. She loved boys, and loved the attention she got from being the only girl, but enough was enough sometimes. She needed girl talk and the strong scent of nail polish remover. After all, playing Indiana Jones was only exciting for a certain amount of time.
Still, she felt that she fit in perfectly with the boys. After a long, hard afternoon of Power Rangers (she was the pink ranger, of course), the four Evans kids would topple into Aunt Viv's kitchen, leaving a trail of dirt in their wake, just in time for a succulent dessert of her infamous strawberry shortcake sundae -- strawberry shortcake surrounded with vanilla ice cream and topped with whipped cream, caramel and chocolate sauces, and rainbow sprinkles. Her taste buds watered just thinking of it.
------
Those summers were the happiest Sharpay had ever been. She lived pressure-free.
During the school year, she and Ryan were too busy being little adults to really let loose and be kids. It was partially Sharpay's fault -- she was so engrossed in performing ever since she was randomly cast as Pocahontas in her kindergarten class Thanksgiving play. She begged her mother to drive her to the community theater after school for rehearsals day after day, dragging a somewhat reluctant Ryan along.
After a while, Ryan caught the performance bug, and somewhere around sixth grade, the twins pushed forward at full throttle.
There was never any stop to it since then. It was all theatricals, all the time.
Except at Aunt Vivienne's.
Her half-conscious self made a mental note to return to Cape Cod that summer before she drifted off to sleep.
"'Princess' again?" her brother Ryan interrupted, referring to the type of vocal exercise she was performing.
"Yes," she replied, fluffing her hair and preparing to take it another key higher.
"You only do 'Princess' when you're really nervous," Ryan reminded her.
"No, I don't," she lied easily. "Ah, ah, ah --" her voice cracked on the highest note. "I'm never going to hit that note!" she sighed, exasperated and frustrated and just plain annoyed.
"Sure, you will. With practice, you'll get there."
Sharpay rolled her eyes. Sure, sometimes it was comforting to hear her brother's words of wisdom, but most of the time it was simply exasperating, especially when it was unwanted, which was almost always.
"Go now," she snapped. "I need to nail this audition."
Ryan edged toward the bedroom door, about to leave. He paused for a moment, looking at his sister in the mirror's reflection. "Break a leg, sis."
"Ryan!" she growled, giving him an aggressive nudge out the door, slamming it in his face.
She turned back to her mirror, pressing the play button on her stereo. Her Les Miserables karaoke CD, worn with age and use, skipped for a moment on the first track; she bypassed a few tracks until she found the one she wanted, the one she'd practiced with about a thousand times since she first bought the CD at the age of seven.
"And now I'm all alone again, nowhere to turn, no one to go to... without a home, without a friend, without a face to say hello to... and now the night is near, and I can make believe he's here," she sang fluidly to her mirror's reflection, putting an extra bit of air into the last, lowest note.
"You're not honestly going to audition with On My Own, are you? It's incredibly overdone," Ryan's voice, rang out, effectively shattering the moment, and Sharpay's patience.
"What part of 'go away' did you not understand?" She slammed the door in his face once more. A moment later, the door squeaked open slightly. "And of course I'm not auditioning with that. It's just a warm-up. How much of an amateur do you think I am?" And then it shut again.
------
Taking one large breath, Sharpay tried to relax.
However, relaxation was evading her today.
Today was her first true audition, for a college production. She was going to try to obtain the role of Lucy Harris, one of the lead female roles in the University of Albuquerque's production of the Jekyll & Hyde musical. This was the first time that the University's theater department was opening up auditions to neighboring high schools and colleges -- for recruitment purposes, the local newspaper had informed her.
Whatever reason the University was doing this... well, Sharpay could care less why the opportunity had presented itself, just that it was there. This could mean big, wonderful, life-changing things for Sharpay if she got a part -- any part.
Everything she'd ever done led up to this moment. All her work in community theater and the stage at East High -- it meant nothing if she couldn't make it into this show. All the preparation of the past month -- it was in vain if they laughed her out of the room.
Sharpay shook her head; she couldn't let negative thinking get to her. Mind over matter, she thought to herself, inhaling another large breath.
She inhaled the scent of her favorite lotion. It smelled like strawberries. Sharpay sighed contentedly, calming instantly. The scent always brought her mind back to summers when she was a little girl. Summers when she had the world at her fingertips.
------
Before her family started to regularly attend Lava Springs, she and Ryan spent many a summer out at the beach in front of Aunt Vivienne's house. She could recall clearly -- Ryan would always sit on the right side of the backseat, she on the left. When they pulled up to the house, Ryan would fling his door open first; she would follow immediately and catch up to him quickly as they raced up the steps -- one, two, three, four -- to see who was fast enough to reach the doorbell first. They kept track each year: when the twins were thirteen years old, the score was four for Ryan, and three for Sharpay. She had beat him that year, relishing in her victory: "In your face, Ry!"
That was the last year they spent the summer at Aunt Viv's.
It was a good summer, she reminisced, that thirteenth year. She had her first kiss there, with the boy across the bay. Peter Adams, she remembered, smiling a silly grin to herself in the mirror. They met when they were nine, when his family moved in. She remembered his strawberry blond hair, green eyes, and excessive smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. He had the goofiest grin she'd ever seen, with crooked teeth, until his braces fixed them the year they turned eleven.
She vaguely wondered what happened to him.
Turning her attention back to the project at hand, she shoved the memories out of her mind. Mind over matter, she reminded herself. The audition was only three days away. She needed to nail the big finish to her audition piece. She brought out her sheet music and popped in her Miss Saigon karaoke CD.
As she practiced, her eyes zipping along the sheet music as she kept time with the CD, her thoughts didn't seem to want to let her off the hook. She kept getting distracted, remembering the feel of the sand in her toes when she, Ryan, and Peter tried to dig themselves to China, the wind in her hair when Peter's brother Charlie drove them to the liquor store across town... and strawberries, always strawberries... they were Aunt Viv's favorite fruit. She always had a supply, ready to be mashed up into cereal or a shortcake. The scent permeated the house, settling on every conceivable object, in every hard-to-reach crevice, even.
Yes, those had been good days.
Focus, Sharpay reprimanded herself, singing louder.
------
That night was a difficult one, at first.
Sharpay tossed and turned, her thoughts pelting her with What if?s. One thought led to another; she couldn't stop them.
What if I completely suck at my audition? What if I don't get into Julliard? What if I don't get in anywhere? What will I do if I can't be a professional performer? Would I teach? No, of course not. I don't have that kind of patience. And no way am I working in the food industry... disgusting. Oh, crap, I have a trigonometry test tomorrow and I didn't study. Not that I'm going to need trig in life anyway. When am I ever going to use FOIL? Except for cooking. Oh, who am I kidding? I'll never have to cook for myself. I'll be rich and famous and the help will do that for me. Unless I don't get rich and famous... that's stupid, of course I will. This one little audition doesn't change a thing, right? ...I'm going to make it. I'm sure of it. I've gotten the lead role in every play since kindergarten! I'm Sharpay freakin' Evans!
She began to relax then, reassuring herself. She settled on one side of her body, her mind quieting down a bit.
The smell of her favorite lotion wafted through her bedroom. Without recognizing any conscious change, her thoughts veered back to her favorite summers.
------
Ryan always claimed the top bunk; secretly, that was fine with Sharpay (whose greatest fears included heights and Grandmother Kathleen's dentures). She only put up a fight so she wouldn't look like a scaredy cat, as her cousin Mitchell was intent on proving. They were there sometimes, too: her cousins Mitchell, two years older, and Logan, a year younger. She always wished for girl cousins, and hoped year after year for another girl to move into one of the surrounding beach houses, just to have a break from all the boisterousness once in a while, but it never happened.
It was fine, though. She loved boys, and loved the attention she got from being the only girl, but enough was enough sometimes. She needed girl talk and the strong scent of nail polish remover. After all, playing Indiana Jones was only exciting for a certain amount of time.
Still, she felt that she fit in perfectly with the boys. After a long, hard afternoon of Power Rangers (she was the pink ranger, of course), the four Evans kids would topple into Aunt Viv's kitchen, leaving a trail of dirt in their wake, just in time for a succulent dessert of her infamous strawberry shortcake sundae -- strawberry shortcake surrounded with vanilla ice cream and topped with whipped cream, caramel and chocolate sauces, and rainbow sprinkles. Her taste buds watered just thinking of it.
------
Those summers were the happiest Sharpay had ever been. She lived pressure-free.
During the school year, she and Ryan were too busy being little adults to really let loose and be kids. It was partially Sharpay's fault -- she was so engrossed in performing ever since she was randomly cast as Pocahontas in her kindergarten class Thanksgiving play. She begged her mother to drive her to the community theater after school for rehearsals day after day, dragging a somewhat reluctant Ryan along.
After a while, Ryan caught the performance bug, and somewhere around sixth grade, the twins pushed forward at full throttle.
There was never any stop to it since then. It was all theatricals, all the time.
Except at Aunt Vivienne's.
Her half-conscious self made a mental note to return to Cape Cod that summer before she drifted off to sleep.